Why I Didn't Finish Camp NaNoWriMo

        I've been trying to think of what to post, and then I got an email reminding me to register for Camp NaNoWriMo. Which reminded me of how catastrophically I failed last year. Voila, blog post!
      April last year was a low point for me. I was having frequent anxiety attacks and also struggling with my depression. Even so, I decided to try Camp NaNoWriMo. And, being silly and more than a little idealistic, I set my word count goal for 50,000. Everything went well enough at first, but within a week, I was behind. I was too anxious to write during most of the time I could have. I was too exhausted at night to catch up. So I fell further and further behind. And, come the end of the month, I was only at about 20,000 words.
      And I'm okay with that, for a few reasons.
      The first is that it's a heck of a lot more than I would've written had I not tried. I had a good beginning. I'd done my best. I probably technically could have written the other 30,000, but I would have been majorly stressed, possibly panicked, and I wouldn't have taken that time to take care of myself.
      That's the second. I needed to take care of myself, first. I wouldn't have had any fun writing. I wouldn't have done anything but stress myself out. Instead of writing, I spent time researching anxiety, I spent one night a week in therapy learning to manage anxiety, and I let my writing go for a bit, because it was not helping me.
       Writing is supposed to be fun. A pain in the butt and the head and the heart, but overall worth it. And that's my third point. It was not worth it last April. I needed a break for my mental health. And that's okay.
       I'm trying again this year, this time with an editing goal for my November 2015 novel. I know I'm a lot stronger than I was one year ago. I also know that life might interfere with my writing again. In fact, it probably will. But I'm accepting that, knowing that I'll get something out of it. I didn't fail last year. I didn't meet my goal, but I didn't fail. I let myself do what was best for me.
      So as you go into any of your writing goals, keep that in mind. Writing is wonderful and takes you to amazing places, but your health is more important. Let yourself fail if you need to. There will always be more time to write. But you are so important and you need to take care of yourself first. If writing helps you work through stress or problems of any sort, go for it. But if it's only going to make you feel worse, then for heaven's sake, stop worrying about it and go do something that will help you feel better now. That novel will get written eventually, but not if you're not there to write it.